So many holes, so little time.

Rating: 1/10 (30 June 2003)

Spoilers Warning. If you haven't seen it, all you need to know is that it's dumb, loud, semi-gory, and souless. If you still want to see it, then don't read on because I'll "spoil" (if it's possible to ruin this movie further) the plotline and ending.
First of all, there is no empathy for any of the main characters. Life is so cheapened, virutally from the opening scenes when "Mark" is remorselessly hacked up by his companion Selena (within minutes of us getting to know him), that you accept the other characters are just so much fodder. The feeble attempt to establish humanity for Jim by trekking to his parents house only made him more contempable. He's a bicycle messenger who sponges off his parents and his "flashback" consists of guzzling their orange juice straight from the carton. Oops, sorry Dad, I drank it all! Sniff, Sniff.
The only character with any sort of humanity, Frank, is then killed off in a stupid fashion, with a single drop of zombie blood hitting his eye. This, after all of them have had countless hackfests with bloodspurting zombies and never managing to get a drop in their mouth or eyes - come on.
His loving, devoted daughter shows about as much remorse for Frank's death as Selena did when she hacked Mark into cordwood. Even Selena has to remind Jim, "How do you think she feels, she just lost her dad". I was with Jim on this one, I couldn't tell how she felt either.
Don't even get me started on the Zombies. Why exactly would they go seeking out only the uninfected? Why wouldn't they fight each other? They don't attack for food, just sport, so why wouldn't another Zombie make a good target? The scene in the military courtyard is just too much. Here's a chained up Zombie just looking to get at the commander and what does he do - he pukes on the ground. Didn't he see the excorcist? He could have just hurled at him! Or at least spit - and the commander obliges by even putting his face right down next to the enraged Zombie.
Then there's the forced relationship between Jim and Selena, which culminates in a zombie bloodied kiss. (you can't tell me they didn't get infected on that kiss). You never get the idea that they really care for each other so much as they want to stay on each others good side. So, the characters are not sympathetic. To me, if you're going to be scared, you have to care about who's being threatened. In the case of 28 days, you never care.
Since I didn't know the ending of the movie going in, I was sort of surprised. I see by reading other reviews that some people still don't get it. *SPOILER WARNING* The virus is contained to the UK! Ok, so that might make for a good plot had the movie been well made, but here's the problem. Jim is made wise to the fact that the UK has been quarantined by the ravings of the Sargent, and then by seeing the plane go overhead. You can't tell me, that in 28 days, the other survivors did not see or hear a plane go overhead! C'mon people, the world was supposed to be reduced to savages. How many regularly scheduled planes would fly over UK airspace on a normal day? That and the fact that the military was obviously searching for the uninfected.
So, in summary, the characters are wooden, the plot is full of holes and it's not scary.